Mapping policy discourse with CRANES: spatial understanding support systems as a medium for community conflict resolution

In this paper I will report on the development of a new spatial understanding support system (SUSS) for representing community disputes. It is argued that the more traditional approach of spatial decision support systems (SDSS) has had limited success in its application to actual community conflicts. In this study I have therefore adopted an alternative approach to spatial decision support, broadly following the paradigm of soft operational research. A prototype system termed CRANES (coordinator for rational arguments through nested substantiation) has been developed based on this alternative approach, integrated with a GIS. CRANES is a computer-assisted communication tool that aims to structure conflicts with their geographical, strategic, and argumentative dimensions. In the case study CRANES was introduced into an actual consultation exercise on an urban regeneration scheme in London. Results show that the multidimensional representation realised by CRANES contributed to a richer understanding of other peoples' arguments. Furthermore these arguments structured by and stored in CRANES proved to be a useful public resource for future decisionmaking. It is concluded that SUSS such as CRANES could be incorporated into a future consultation process for many real-world community conflicts.